Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) generally refers to the concept of locally heating a recording medium to reduce the coercivity of the recording medium so that an applied magnetic writing field can more easily affect magnetization of the recording medium during a temporary magnetic softening of the recording medium caused by the local heating. HAMR allows for the use of small grain media, with a larger magnetic anisotropy at room temperature to assure sufficient thermal stability, which is desirable for recording at increased areal densities. HAMR can be applied to any type of storage media, including for example, tilted media, longitudinal media, perpendicular media, and/or patterned media.
One drawback to recording technologies such as HAMR is that a written size of magnetic bits is reduced when writing at high linear densities, ultimately limiting an achievable areal density capability (ADC). Better designs are needed to increase ADC in storage media of HAMR devices.